Borrowed Time
by Franbunanza
Summary: AU oneshot, as if the Bomb plot never happened. They just carried on in Dharma. She is 21 and He is 44, this shouldn't be happening but it is. Charladay, Suliet


Disclaimer: Don't own any of this stuff.

A/N: This is a strange one, i tried to keep on top of timelines but s5 made in confusing, I'm asuming Eloise was pregnant with Daniel in "Follow the Leader" and not some other mystery child, even though it makes his age confusing. It AU, as if the bomb plot never happened

* * *

Juliet knows this means trouble. Its been 15 years since she'd last seen Charlotte Staples Lewis. The name on the clip board had jumped out at her. It couldn't be, it must just be a coincidence.

The redhead jumps down from the submarine, blue eyes scanning the perimeter and Juliet groans to herself. No longer a six year old little girl, the woman waits with the other new recruits. Its all too weird, Juliet turns away because that woman died and this never happened. She comes back on the freighter almost 10 years from now.

That's what happened, they had been told so many times that it can't be changed. A sinking feeling in her gut tells her that they are really stuck now, this is there life and things will be different. Juliet is okay with this, she has let go of her past, but Daniel has not.

* * *

At first he thinks he's just going crazy, or at least crazier than he's already gone. But she speaks, asks the woman in the cafeteria for a slice of cake. His head goes light and he's only semi conscious of his tray slipping from his hands. Feeling like a complete idiot he lies still on his back on the cafeteria floor. Charlotte crouches down.

"Are you alright?"

Dan can't talk, his breathing is out of control and he wants to cry. Not one of them warned him, Juliet must have known but she never said a word. He wonders how long she has been here.

Charlotte puts one hand on the back of his neck, the other around his waist, she helps him up.

"Just came over light headed," he murmurs as she sits him down at one of the tables.

"Here have some of my cake, sugar will help." and then there is that smile that he's been missing for 18 years now.

Dan does the maths in his head as he tries to eat the cake she offers, 21. Charlotte is 21 and he is 44. Suddenly it hits him how long he has been alone, each day has seemed like a blur until now.

"So Joe is it?" Charlotte speaks, taking note of his overalls.

"Daniel, my real name is Daniel." he swallows, Lafleur would go mad if he knew he was messing around with the established identity. Maybe he was sick of pretending to be Joe the scientist who failed to get the back to the correct time.

"Hmm intriguing, you hiding from the law or did they just run out of overalls?"

"Something like that, you are?" he asks knowing the answer. She is Charlotte, the woman he loved and failed to keep safe. He didn't tell her to leave because he couldn't change anything. She left because her parents marriage had disintegrated, Her father had died in an electrical accident at the pearl station 12 years ago, and now she had returned.

"Charlotte, I gave up going to Oxford to come here and they just stick me in the motor pool, if you can you believe that!?" She shakes his hand and he holds on just a little too long, because this must just be another dream on the cusp of nightmare.

He tells her he went to Oxford and they talk until the cafeteria fills with workers wanting dinner. He notices that no one notices her, that nobody comes to say hello and sadly he realises that her talent for isolating herself has once again prevailed.

Daniel catches sight of Juliet and James. Juliet stares and tries to warn him with stony expression. James gives a hidden smile, because this situation is to messed up to rationalise.

* * *

Charlotte doesn't care that her new friend is twice her age. She can hardly tell anyway, save for a few grey hairs and crows feet. Dan is more interesting than the rest of the idiots on this rock. On their free days they would take off into the jungle together and he would show her places that he thought might interest her. An old slave ship and a temple hidden deep in the jungle being to particular places of interest. He warned her of "the others" and so they took great care to explore unnoticed.

"Do you ever regret your decision to come back here?" Dan asked as they circled around the Black Rock, she had discovered that that was what the old ship had been named.

"No, Its amazing to be back. Now I know the truth, that this island did exist. My mum tried to tell me that we had lived in Jersey, do you know where that is?"

Dan nodded.

Charlotte laughed, "The bloody cheek of it, as if I was that delusional!"

"But…lets just say…completely hypothetically…if I could use my knowledge of physics to create another universe for you…umm…you wouldn't have gone to Oxford instead?"

"Another universe for me?" Charlotte grinned, she enjoyed that sweet offer for a few seconds. "Oxford would have been a fantastic opportunity, but I think I would still rather be here. Anyway in another universe we might never have met and that would be know fun at all would it?" She grinned at him as she stepped over a boulder that was blocking her path. A twig snapped beneath her foot. "And as nice as it is for you to offer, people don't go around creating universes willy-nilly."

Daniel stopped in his tracks and covered her mouth with his hand. He pulled her down towards the ground, crouching behind fallen branches.

"Shhhh." he whispered.

Charlotte watched beyond the branches as a group of "Others" trekked past, she had no intention of making a sound, yet she did not make any attempt to move his hand. She could feel his heart pumping erratically within his chest and in spite of the potential danger of the situation, she smiled. Her lips turning upwards against his fingers reminded Daniel that he really wasn't supposed to let himself get to close to her. Touching Charlotte had been quite the hobby of his before she had died, she never seemed to mind. She leaned back against him slightly, she still didn't mind.

The "Others" passed, Daniel took his hand away and told her that they should probably be heading back to the compound now.

"Charlotte, there's this lighthouse, It's all boarded up but if you'd like to see it…We could go sometime?" Dan offered as they were about to go back to their separate houses.

She nods, "It's a date."

* * *

Juliet was less than pleased about them spending time together, she told Charlotte to stay away from Daniel. She explains that there are things she cannot understand about him and that he has suffered enough for one life time. Charlotte resents this assumption of Juliet's, that she would just hurt him, why because she is young?

It's the only logically reason she can come up with. She does not know that in his life he had fallen in love with her already, that she had felt the same but had died and that since that day he had shut himself away. He failed to save them and now things had changed.

Charlotte argued her points, but Juliet, wiping axel grease from her forehead, stated again that she should stay away from Daniel.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and thought of her mother, she liked to try and tell her daughter what to do as well.

That night she went to visit him, as had become routine. They would talk and then get dinner together. Sometimes it was clear that he had been crying. He would never tell her why, so she just put it down to his emotional nature. She likes that about him, it puts into balance her usual cool demeanour.

Today is another one of those days, he leans with his head on his arms on the keys of his piano. He plays beautifully and she just can't understand why his mother made him stop. From what he has told her about his mother she has deduced that the woman is a sour old cow.

"How was your day?" he asks forcing a smile her way.

"Ahh, Juliet nagging me again." Charlotte sits down next to him on the piano stool, she sit's a little too close so that their legs are touching.

"Probably pregnancy hormones." Dan responds.

Daniel was part of a close and secretive group including the head of security, James Lafleur, his deputy Miles who would ask her strange questions and often would stare at her as if her existence completely baffled him, Juliet, her boss and James's wife and a Korean man named Jin, the only one of the group that seemed to understand her relationship with Daniel. There was no judgemental air exuding from Jin, he just got it.

"I didn't know about the pregnancy." Charlotte mentioned after a moment of silence.

"They are keeping it quite because…" he paused. "Uh her age."

She knew he was lying, Jin had told her about pregnant women dying on the island, although two other women had carried their babies successfully to term since she had been on the island. Jin's story seemed to stem from personal fear.

"What happened to Jin's wife?"

"She's gone." Daniel sighed heavily.

"Dead?"

"No, just gone where he can't be with her anymore. I was supposed to help, that's why I was in Ann Arbour, but…I let everyone down."

"How about you?"

Daniel didn't understand her vague question, he furrowed his brow.

"Ever had a wife?" it had been bothering her, he was such a sweetheart, she couldn't have been the only one to notice.

"I had a girlfriend at university, Tracy or Terri, something along those lines. But our experiments went very wrong and she…"

"Were you in love with her?" Charlotte asked bluntly.

"For a while, but things ended and I met someone else. Someone I would have married, if I had had the time to ask her and if she had said yes. The woman I loved along time ago… died."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Here let me fetch us a drink, seems like you could do with it."

Charlotte got to her feet and rushed to the kitchen, she hid her embarrassed face from Daniel. Why didn't she just keep her mouth shut. Charlotte returned with two glasses containing a generous measures of Dharma brand whiskey.

* * *

He should feel guilty, he should hate himself because she is so young. He runs his hand over her hair whilst she sleeps beside him. Now aware more than ever at how much he had missed her hair, the way it felt beneath his hands, the way it smelt. Charlotte was Charlotte once more. No longer a little girl but the absolute carbon copy of the one that had completely consumed his heart. Just younger, wilder and a little more...free.

His own desperation made him feel sick, but its okay, he justifies, because only Charlotte could make him this crazy. It was all so easy to walk away from Theresa (that was her name, he remembers now) and forget her, but Charlotte remained with him, like a ghost wrapped round his shoulders. Ann Arbour was destined to fail, because deep down he didn't really care about helping the others, the voice in his mind was commanding him to find away to save her even though she was already gone.

Believing her to be asleep he whispers that he loves her.

She murmurs in reply, "You didn't have to say that, that you love me." she is lost in a deep sleep and is unaware of what she had said.

Memories of another lifetime freeze his heart for a moment. This is another universe for Charlotte, another chance. Things are not the same as they were and he doesn't understand, but it doesn't matter because Charlotte is alive, he still means what he says and everything is so wrong but still somehow right.

* * *

A year goes past and Daniel forgets what it was like to be so miserable. Juliet gives birth to a healthy baby girl and she just about survives the process. She had been so frightened, understandably. Charlotte had gotten the promotion to the Hydra station she had set her sight on from the moment she had returned. Everything was perfect except the niggling worry at the back of Daniels mind, it concerned an event he had studied whilst researching the Dharma initiative. The purge, it still could happen. They defeated the Tempest once so they can do it again he assures himself. Then he will be redeemed, he'll save Charlotte, his friends and the new Lafleur baby.

* * *

Juliet knows, of course, that Charlotte and Daniel have idiotically entered into a romantic relationship. "These things end in heartbreak" she tells James one night after putting the baby down to sleep, "Yeah because before that guy was so happy-go-lucky and little miss ice queen had so many prospects." he retorts, so she lets it go. Jim Lafleur joins his wife at the window and holds her hand. The cool metal of their rings clink gently. He looks out and spots Daniel talking with Charlotte. He smiles as they converse, so does James. Him and Daniel have never been close friends, but in this last year, with the fear of losing Juliet looming over his head, he came to understand the pain that Daniel must have felt when Red died.

* * *

Daniel needs Charlotte, and he is grateful to have her back even if it means a few more conservative members of the initiative give them filthy looks. If he stands any chance of pulling the "Tempest" mission off then he'll need Charlotte by his side, just like before. Its not as if she would let him go alone and if he screwed up then they are all dead anyway.

* * *

Charlotte packs the bio-hazard suits and gas masks into a bag and tucks a gun in her belt. The "Others" have grown restless of the Dharma initiative's continued presence on the island. There has been sightings next to the Tempest station, Dan fears that they might use the gas to attack and he assures her that he could neutralise it. Charlotte leans back from the bag she is packing and concentrates, her head hurts and the sense that going to the "Tempest" with Daniel seems somehow familiar. It takes her a couple of seconds to realise that the strange mark that has appeared on the glass front of the gas mask she was holding is blood. In the bathroom she catches sight of her face in the mirror. Blood trickles from her nose and it frightens her more than she thinks it should.

* * *

"Its like De ja Vu." she explains as they trek through the jungle. "Just an anomaly of the memory. Still a little unsettling though."

"But, You feel okay? Right?" Daniel places his hands on her arms, his long fingers wrapping round to the shape of her flesh. He's worried and so Charlotte lies to make him feel better.

"Yes, I'm focused on the task at hand." she smiled to assure him.

"If you feel dizzy, or confused or any nose bleeds, then…"

"What aren't you telling me?" she asks.

"What aren't you telling me?" he repeated, holding her still. They stare each other down for a moment.

"That I love you, and that's not what I came to this island for." Charlotte laughs, the tension is broken, "My mother would go berserk, not because of the age thing, but because your American."

Daniel doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, the words stick in his throat until he manages to whisper that he loves her too.

She kisses him and they drop the previous conversation. Charlotte puts the nose bleed down to a fluke, just a humidity change or something and they carry on.

They change into the bio-hazard suits upon arrival at the Tempest. Daniel does what he has to do.

5 minutes in and Charlotte feels like she's been here before again. She feels dizzy and tells Dan that she's going to get some air. He checks that she has her gun and tells her only to remove her mask for a short amount of time, just in case.

He removes his mask as he finishes, sighs with relief. Everyone will be safe now, a thin slither of redemption has been handed to him. These thoughts are the last in his mind that make sense before his heart drops. A gunshot is fired outside.

* * *

The young "Other" trembles with fear as he struggles to carry his heavy gun to the "Tempest". His Mother and Father are relying on him to do a good job, to not screw up, to be a man. Nothing bad is going to happen, he repeats in his head over and over. He stands still as he catches sight of a figure dressed in white, a gun in gloved hand.

Its as if his own gun fires itself, it falls smoking from his hands as he watches his victim stumble over. Fighting back a sob he approaches, blood pours out of the wound he has inflicted, staining the white suit red.

With shaking hands he removes the gas mask. The young woman's dieing eyes meet with his. She can only be a few years older than him. There is horror in her contorting face.

"How…?" she rasps, blood now spilling from her lips.

She is so beautiful and so young and he has killed her. The betrayal in her eyes is extinguished as she finally dies in his arms.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to…I…" the killers sobs are uncontrolled. Through tear filled eyes he notices a man in a matching white suit standing before them.

* * *

Daniel is sickened by what he see's. The woman he loves lies dead in the arms of his teenage self. This time things really were different, his memories are fuzzy and conflicting, some of him living in Massachusetts and others where he is raised on the island as an "Other". Charles Widmore is his father. All this information spins in his head. Time should not be messed with he tells himself for the a thousandth time.

Blood runs from his nose and from his other self's as matching brown eyes lock. He knows that there is no other choice now, its time to end things. Kneeling down beside Charlotte's body, he takes her from his young self's trembling arms and holds her as tight as he can. The sobbing young man in front of the older sobbing man doesn't even see him take Charlotte's gun.

Daniel shoots his teenage self, watches as the blood leaks from his chest, he glances down and sees that the same is happening to himself. The three of them lay still and dead on the jungle floor until Eloise finds them. Somewhere deep down she knew what she was looking at, but she cannot accept it.

* * *

A/N: Random I know but reviews are really appreciated XXXXXXXXx


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